These are Asia’s favourite brands in 2018

ELECTRONICS giants dominate the most popular brands in Asia, according to a new ranking released by a leading advertising publication.

Campaign Asia’s Top 1000 Brands was released this month, which found that Samsung retained its crown of Asia’s favourite brand. The Korean company was followed by its major competitor in the smartphone market Apple, which came in runner-up for the second year in a row.

Japanese electronics manufacturers Panasonic and Sony came in third and fourth, respectively, followed by Swiss food and beverage leader Nestle. Google jumped into the top ten after Korea’s LG, followed by Chanel, Nike and Philips.

“It’s an important element to show the human side,” Jonathan Cummings, Hong Kong chairman of brand consultancy Fitch told Campaign. “With somebody like Samsung where you’ve got such strong R&D power, then the world starts to expect that from them.”

While several of Samsung’s senior management have recently been embroiled in a major tax evasion controversy, this did not appear to damage the brand’s image in the mind of consumers.

“The leaders…are not particularly high profile as individuals,” said Cummings. “With a huge corporate like Samsung people are judging them on the quality of products they produce and I think they are big enough, strong enough as a brand to ride out that sort of thing.”

Campaign Asia’s ranking is based upon surveys supported by Nielsen conducted across the Asia Pacific with 400 respondents in each market, except Japan, India and China where participants numbered 800, 1200 and 2000 respectively.

According to Jerry Clode, head of digital and social insight at Resonance China, Samsung’s success can be attributed to its consistent branding – particularly regarding mobile phones.

“One of the strongest things they do here in China and across Asia is their retail presence,” he said. “They are very, very clear on how their stores or their branded counters communicate with the people that man them in terms of what they wear and how the products and the product portfolio is presented and that’s always been very consistent.”